The First Kremlin New Year Celebration: Why the Move from the House of Unions Is Dated to Both 1953 and 1954

For many years, Moscow’s main New Year celebration for children took place in the Hall of Columns at the House of Unions. On 30 December 1953, a commission was preparing the festivities at the Grand Kremlin Palace, where the first documented children’s performance took place on 1 January 1954. The documents distinguish between the preparations and the date of the event; the date of the original decision to change the main venue remains unknown.

On 31 December 1953, Pravda was still describing the New Year celebration in the Hall of Columns. A photograph from Moscow’s Main Archive Directorate, dated January 1956, shows the festivities continuing there after the Kremlin had become the main venue. The ‘move’ should therefore be understood as a change in the venue for the main performance: the previous hall continued to welcome children.

Why do 1935 and 1937 mark different stages in the celebration’s history?

On 28 December 1935, Pravda published a letter from Pavel Postyshev calling for New Year festivities to be restored for children. This marks a securely dated turning point in public policy towards the celebration, but the appeal itself does not give the date of the first performance in the Hall of Columns. The Presidential Library dates the Moscow New Year celebration at the House of Unions to 1 January 1937. In another account from the library Postyshev’s appeal is dated to December 1934, yet the issue of Pravda examined by Elena Dushechkina, confirms the date as 28 December 1935.

The discrepancy predates the move to the Kremlin. The city magazine Moscow Heritage dates the celebration in the Hall of Columns back to 1935; some later accounts give 31 December 1936. A dated report in Pravda, cited by the Presidential Library, describes a performance on 1 January 1937. It confirms that particular date, but does not in itself prove that no children’s New Year events had previously taken place in the hall. When reading a brief chronology, it helps to establish whether it refers to the revival of the celebration, its resumption in a particular city, or a specific venue in the capital.

It is important here to define the scope of the event. Moscow’s Hall of Columns was not the venue for the very first Soviet children’s New Year celebration: the Presidential Library points to festivities in Kharkiv on 31 December 1935. What follows traces the history of the capital’s main celebration through to its move to the Kremlin.

What changed after the newspaper appeal of 1935?

Postyshev’s article was directed at those who could act on it: schools, children’s homes, clubs and Komsomol organisations. According to the study by literary scholar Elena Dushechkina, The Russian Christmas Tree, the very next issue of Pravda reported urgent telegrams to district Komsomol secretaries proposing that they organise New Year celebrations and procure trees, decorations and gifts. Only a few days remained between the appeal on 28 December and New Year. The initial revival of the New Year tree celebration should therefore not be presented as a unified nationwide programme prepared long in advance.

Dushechkina also draws attention to the material published alongside the appeal in Pravda itself: the same issue carried reports on trees being sold at Moscow markets and a shortage of decorations. This was the logistical side of the cultural shift. The call to organise a mass celebration immediately raised questions about supplying fir trees, manufacturing decorations and training people to lead children’s performances. A year later, practical guides were already addressing these tasks.

The word ‘restored’ also oversimplifies the history. Dushechkina shows that Christmas trees in private homes did not disappear entirely during the campaign against the Christmas custom, and that images and stories featuring them continued to appear in print. From late 1935 onwards, the authorities publicly endorsed the children’s celebration and gave it a secular New Year meaning. For the history of the House of Unions, the key development was the transition from isolated events to a large organised performance reported in a national newspaper.

How should the first festive seasons at the House of Unions be dated?

Retellings may assign the same event to the year of its preparation, the calendar year of the January celebration, or the festive season as a whole. The city magazine ‘Moscow Heritage’ writes that the main New Year celebration was held in the Hall of Columns ‘from 1935’, whereas the Presidential Library gives 1 January 1937. The magazine’s wording should be read as a general account of the tradition’s beginnings: its caption neither names a specific performance in December 1935 nor cites its programme.

Istorik magazine, for example, gives 31 December 1936 as the date of the first all-Union New Year celebration. This wording may refer to the start of the 1936/37 season, but does not in itself invalidate the newspaper’s description of festivities on 1 January. Establishing whether a separate children’s performance took place in the Hall of Columns on the evening of 31 December requires a poster or report explicitly naming the hall, the participants and the date. For an article about the move to the Kremlin, the securely documented January date is sufficient; an absolute claim that this was the ‘first-ever performance in the building’ would go too far.

Why was the Hall of Columns suited to Moscow’s main New Year celebration?

The Hall of Columns at the House of Unions provided space for a children’s celebration centred on a large New Year tree and a stage performance: the tree among the columns can be seen in Ivan Shagin’s photograph, while Father Frost’s appearance on stage is described in a newspaper report from 1937. The hall already hosted large gatherings and concerts.

At 1 Bolshaya Dmitrovka, the House of Unions occupied the former Assembly of the Nobility building. The city publication dates the remodelling to Matvey Kazakov’s design to 1784–1787. Art historian Evgenia Gershkovich notes the 28 columns framing the central space of the Hall of Columns.

The venue had previously hosted balls and musical concerts, followed later by congresses and ceremonial meetings. This history explains the hall’s prestige, but does not in itself reveal who chose it for the children’s celebration in the 1930s. The organisation of mass New Year festivities belonged to a different institutional setting.

1 Bolshaya Dmitrovka stands near Teatralnaya Square and Okhotny Ryad. The change of venue in 1954 therefore meant both a new address and a shift in symbolic significance: invited children were now taken into the Kremlin complex. The distance between the two venues is short; the significance of the move lay in the status and layout of the new space rather than the length of the journey. This is reflected in the day’s programme, published in January 1954.

What do we know about the celebration on 1 January 1937?

The Presidential Library dates the New Year celebration in the Hall of Columns at the House of Unions to 1 January 1937 and gives a precise source: Pravda, No. 2 (6968), 2 January 1937, page 6. The newspaper correspondent described a decorated tree reaching almost to the ceiling, lighting effects and Father Frost’s appearance on stage. This is a report of an event that had taken place, rather than a later reconstruction of the festive decorations.

The newspaper account helps explain how the performance was staged. The correspondent mentions coloured spotlight beams and a lighting effect that created the impression of snow inside the hall. The New Year tree was part of the stage action, rather than simply a decorated tree for an official photograph. The report allows us to reconstruct the sequence seen by the audience: first the darkened hall and the lighting, then the character’s entrance onto the stage.

Ivan Shagin’s photograph in the project ‘History of Russia in Photographs’ shows the New Year tree in the Hall of Columns. The catalogue gives January 1937, the photographer’s name and the source — S. Shagina’s collection. The catalogue description alone cannot establish the exact day on which the photograph was taken. It therefore confirms the location and month, while the precise date of the celebration should be taken from the dated newspaper report cited by the Presidential Library.

The photograph has a revealing attribution history: the comments on the project page preserve a question about its previous dating and an editorial reply from August 2024 confirming that it had been corrected. This is a reason to consult the current image record rather than copy the date from someone else’s caption. The correction itself does not make the photograph evidence of the decision to hold the celebration: it shows an event already taking place.

The photograph and the report provide different kinds of information. The photograph records the appearance of the hall at the moment it was taken, but conveys neither the sound nor the pace of the performance, nor what Father Frost said. The newspaper describes the action, yet its correspondent selected only a few details. Together, the two sources allow us to discuss the setting and individual episodes in the programme, without assigning the photograph the exact date of 1 January or an unverified number of guests.

In 1937, the People’s Commissariat for Education and the Toy Committee published a practical guide. In the Presidential Library’s catalogue, among the materials in the collection The 1937 collection ‘The New Year Tree’ lists E. Ovchinnikova’s article ‘The New Year Tree at the House of Unions’, alongside texts about celebrations at schools and nursery schools, music and making decorations. Even the contents page shows that this venue served as a distinct example of how to organise a New Year celebration for children. The catalogue entry does not justify recounting the chapter’s contents without having read it.

What were celebration organisers taught in 1937?

The Presidential Library has separately examined the contents of the collection ‘The New Year Tree’. The authors distinguished between celebrations at nursery schools, schools and the House of Unions: the children’s ages, the number of participants and the resources available shaped the programme. This defines the limits of the handbook’s application. It was not a standard script for every performance in the Hall of Columns, but it does show which matters were already considered important: decorations, music, the role of the hosts, handing out presents and the children’s own participation.

The publication suggested new designs for tree ornaments, with examples including the metro, the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station, traffic lights and an oil gusher. These objects linked the New Year celebration to the imagery of everyday Soviet life and technology. The collection’s catalogue also lists chapters on songs, puppet theatre and homemade decorations. Its contributors conceived of a children’s celebration as a combination of spectacle, play and activities, rather than simply a single appearance by Father Frost.

There is also an educational qualification to this grand picture. The Presidential Library’s review describes an incident recounted in the handbook: young children were frightened by Father Frost’s overly ceremonial entrance. The authors advised adapting the action to the children’s ages and allowing them to take part freely in the celebration. This example concerns a nursery school, rather than the Hall of Columns; it illustrates the methods of the period, but does not prove that such an incident occurred at Moscow’s main New Year celebration.

What does the New Year celebration at the House of Unions reveal shortly before the move?

The House of Unions was still hosting New Year celebrations at the end of 1953. In a study by historian Marina Klinova there is a description of the New Year celebration in the Hall of Columns from Pravda dated 31 December 1953: the newspaper reported an 18-metre tree and the involvement of around 350 performers. The issue date does not establish the day of any particular performance, but it shows that the celebration in the former hall was being reported while preparations for the Kremlin series were already under way.

At the end of 1952, the Hall of Columns was still hosting New Year performances. The catalogue entry for a photograph by A. Batanov and V. Mastyukov, published with the Moscow Main Archive Directorate credited as the source, gives the location and date of the photograph: the House of Unions, 29 December 1952. The caption connects the image with the opening of the celebration. Such precise dating matters more than the vague phrase ‘in the early fifties’.

The filename on Wikimedia Commons includes the year 1953, while the date field gives 29 December 1952. There is no contradiction here: the photograph belongs to the 1952/53 season, although it was taken at its beginning. This example explains why a seasonal caption and the date of an event may differ. For December 1953, however, there is separate evidence: dated records from the commission responsible for the new venue. A single photograph from the previous winter cannot replace them.

In the contents of Izvestia for 1 January 1954 list a photograph of the New Year tree in the Hall of Columns by N. Petrov and A. Novikov. The contents do not establish the day the photograph was taken, but, together with Pravda’s December report, they confirm that the former hall still featured in festive coverage.

The Moscow Main Archive Directorate has published a photograph by M. Ozersky of a New Year celebration in the Hall of Columns, dated January 1956. The photograph confirms that children’s celebrations continued at the House of Unions after the Kremlin performances began. The word ‘move’ in brief chronologies denotes a change of the main venue, rather than the end of all New Year celebrations in the former building.

How did the holiday become part of the official calendar?

1 January became an official day off under a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated 23 December 1947. The Presidential Library gives the document’s date and title. This is a separate milestone in the history of the main New Year celebration: public children’s performances in the Hall of Columns began before the first day of the year once again became an official day off.

The 1937 celebration therefore cannot be explained in terms of a ‘New Year holiday break’ in today’s sense. Festive gatherings for children were already being held in the winter of 1937, but the calendar day had a different status. The 1947 decree changed the general working calendar at the start of January; it did not grant permission for the first time to decorate trees or invite schoolchildren to the House of Unions. Distinguishing between these events helps avoid reducing the celebration’s long history to a single government decision.

By the mid-20th century, the New Year celebration was already an established, recurring programme in the city: evidence comes both from the date of the 1952 photograph and from the winter series of Kremlin performances reported by the newspaper in 1954. The change of hall took place within an existing tradition. It changed the venue, the visitors’ route and the event’s public standing, but did not create the custom from scratch.

What happened in the Kremlin on 1 January 1954?

In St George’s Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace hosted a children’s New Year celebration. The event is documented in a near-contemporary source: a TASS report in Moskovskaya Pravda dated 3 January 1954. The newspaper explicitly identifies the first day of the year as the date of the celebration and St George’s Hall as the location of the tree.

This publication carries particular weight: the TASS report was published shortly after the event, rather than compiled decades later from recollections. Its opening states that the children were heading to the Kremlin on the first day of 1954. The journalist then follows them through specific spaces within the palace. This sequence leaves no room to mistake the text for an account of December 1953 or of preparations for the performance.

The TASS report describes the children crossing Red Square and ascending the palace’s grand staircase. Fanfares sounded at noon, followed by a performance featuring Father Frost and the Snow Maiden. The newspaper reported that more than two thousand children gathered on 1 January, and that the festivities were intended to continue until 10 January. The latter was the plan announced at the time, rather than proof that every subsequent performance took place on precisely the same scale.

The newspaper names the performers in the leading roles: actress Vera Volskaya played the Snow Maiden, while M. Nazvanov, an Honoured Artist of the RSFSR, played Father Frost. After the performance began, artists from the Bolshoi Theatre performed the waltz from ‘The Sleeping Beauty’, and the USSR Folk Dance Ensemble presented a number of its own. The programme included theatrical action, music and children’s circle dances, rather than simply viewing a decorated fir tree.

The TASS report lists performers and individual acts, but does not reproduce the full script. The archival programme provides a different level of detail: the sequence of welcome activities, concerts, games and gift-giving. Even these two types of evidence do not, without a separate document, allow every decision to be attributed to a particular director or establish an unchanging cast for every performance from 1 to 10 January.

The TASS report states that visitors on the first day received gifts. Materials published by the Moscow Main Archive Directorate list mandarins, sweets, wafers and biscuits among the planned contents of the gift packs. This is another instance where the plan and the report must be read separately: the newspaper confirms that gifts were handed out on 1 January, but does not list the contents of each pack distributed.

The newspaper report also mentions visits to the Kremlin’s historic sites, including the Armoury Chamber. The Presidential Library also writes that after the first Kremlin New Year celebration, children and parents visited the Kremlin and the Armoury Chamber. This is an important detail of the change of venue: the celebration now took place within a historic complex, where walking through the halls and museum became part of the children’s day.

In the materials Moscow Kremlin Museums for schoolchildren St George's Hall is described as the largest state room in the Grand Kremlin Palace; it is 61 metres long. This figure helps convey the scale of the new venue, but does not establish the event's capacity. The newspaper gives the number of guests on the first day, while the dimensions of the space alone, without a seating plan and schedule, cannot tell us how many children could have gathered around the tree at once.

The festivities took visitors through a series of different rooms in the palace. TASS mentions St George's Hall with its tree, dancing in St Vladimir's Hall, music beneath the vaults of the Palace of Facets and a visit to the Armoury Chamber. When discussing the '1954 Kremlin New Year celebration', these places should not be conflated into a single hall. The day's festivities extended beyond the room containing the main tree.

An invitation to the Kremlin did not mean that its grounds were open to everyone. According to the Presidential Library's chronology, general public access began on 20 July 1955; before then, groups were admitted under special arrangements. The announcement in Pravda dated 1 January 1954 explicitly states that tickets for the children's New Year celebration and the young people's ball were distributed by Moscow's district organisations. This matters when assessing the scale: it was a large celebration, but the palace was not open to any passer-by.

What do museum sources say about access to the Kremlin?

The Presidential Library distinguishes between the decision taken by the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee on 14 July 1955 and the opening of the Kremlin to the general public on 20 July. This, too, shows why the date of an administrative act cannot simply be substituted for the day visitors entered the grounds. The website describes the Moscow Kremlin Museums this period as a time when the monuments were being prepared for large numbers of visitors: by 1955, the walls and towers had been reinforced and restored, and work had been carried out on the cathedrals and museum interiors. This context explains why the January 1954 New Year celebration was a special event for invited guests, rather than a sign that any passer-by could freely enter the palace.

The 1954 newspaper lists the cathedrals, the Ivan the Great Bell Tower, the Tsar Cannon and the Tsar Bell among the sights the schoolchildren experienced. These are the words of a contemporary report. They do not mean that every one of the more than two thousand children followed exactly the same route and saw every place listed in the same order. The journalist described the celebration's overall programme; the movements of individual groups are not recorded in the text.

The figure of 'more than 2000 children' in the TASS report refers to the first day of 1954. The newspaper's reference to tens of thousands of schoolchildren by 10 January expressed the expected total for the series of events. A publication based on material from the Main Archive Directorate gives a figure of 47,500 children invited with their parents over the whole period. Invitations, first-day visitors and total attendance are different measures; they must not be added together, nor should a plan be presented as a full report.

What do the programme and announcement reveal before the first performance?

Material from the Moscow Main Archive Directorate shows that on 30 December 1953 a committee was organising the children's New Year celebration. The archive holds the minutes of the meeting, the approved programme and a list of gifts. According to a reprint of the archival publication, performances in St George's Hall were planned for 1 to 10 January 1954. The December minutes confirm the preparations, while the January dates refer to the planned programme.

The announcement on the front page of Pravda on 1 January 1954 named the organisers — the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions and the Komsomol Central Committee — set the start of the children's New Year celebration for noon and announced a series of events running until 10 January. A separate masked ball for young people was scheduled for nine that evening. Both events took place in the palace, but had different audiences and programmes; a later generic caption such as 'New Year celebration in the Kremlin' may conflate photographs of the children's celebration with images of the evening ball.

The archival publication specifies that the committee planned morning and afternoon performances; this helps explain how they intended to accommodate tens of thousands of invited guests over ten days. It also records a detail linking the two venues: tickets for the Kremlin celebration were distributed through trade union committees and the House of Unions box office. The former venue therefore retained an organisational role after the new hall had been chosen. This is evidence of how tickets were sold and distributed, not proof that performances continued simultaneously in the Hall of Columns.

The TASS report in Moskovskaya Pravda on 3 January described the first day after it had taken place: the fanfares at noon, the performers and more than two thousand children. The preliminary programme lets us check what was intended, while the report confirms that the performance took place. Both texts date from the time of the event, but neither is a complete account of attendance at every performance or of whether every detail of the plan was carried out through to 10 January.

Where does the date 1953 come from?

In this chronology, 1953 documents the preparations: on 30 December, the committee discussed the New Year celebration and ball at the Grand Kremlin Palace. One reference entry from the Presidential Library dates the move from the House of Unions to 1953, another dates the first Kremlin New Year celebration to 1 January 1954. It remains unclear which administrative step the authors had in mind.

The December meeting proves that the Kremlin venue had been chosen before the January performances began. But this date alone does not reveal when the change of venue was first proposed or approved. The archival publication describes the preparatory minutes, programme and list of gifts; it does not present a separate earlier order stating 'move from the House of Unions'. Thus, 30 December is a documented milestone in the organisation of the event, rather than automatically the date of the decision to relocate.

‘Moscow Heritage’ dates the move of the main New Year celebration to the Kremlin to 1954. This matches the year in which the documented performances began. The reference entries vary in precision: '1953' and '1954' can be linked to the preparations and the performances respectively, but the authors' brief wording does not explain exactly which step is described as the 'move'. The December minutes provide concrete support for an explanation spanning two calendar years, without establishing the date of the original decision.

Thus, the explanation involving preparations for the 1953/54 New Year season is now supported by a specific document from late December, rather than conjecture alone. However, the minutes do not establish that a children's performance took place in the Kremlin as early as 1953: the newspaper announcement scheduled it for noon on 1 January 1954, and the subsequent report described the event after it had taken place. The year '1953' in a brief overview cannot be substituted without qualification for the date of the first performance.

The reprinted article from the Main Archive Directorate summarises the committee's minutes but does not provide their full text or archival reference. It establishes the date of the meeting and the content of the announced programme; it cannot establish the date of the very first decision to choose St George's Hall. That would require the text of an order or earlier minutes.

Why does the 1952 photograph not settle the debate about 1953?

Sources record both venues at the turn of 1953 and 1954: on 30 December, the committee was organising the Kremlin series of events; on 31 December, Pravda published a description of the New Year celebration at the House of Unions; and the TASS report of 3 January described the first celebration in St George's Hall on 1 January. A newspaper's publication date does not always coincide with the date of the event it describes, so these publications cannot establish the exact date of the last performance in the Hall of Columns.

How should these sources be read together?

The documents serve different purposes. The Pravda report of 2 January 1937, cited by the Presidential Library, dates the Moscow celebration; Shagin's photograph shows the Hall of Columns, but its catalogue record dates it only to January. The collection 'The New Year Tree' provides evidence of how performances were prepared. The archival documents of 30 December 1953 describe the organisation of the new venue, while the newspaper announcement and report distinguish the promised programme from the events of 1 January 1954.

Dushechkina's study adds another type of evidence to these publications. The author describes a photograph of the New Year tree in St George's Hall published in Pravda on 2 January 1954 and quotes a short piece by Konstantin Paustovsky about the first Kremlin celebration. The newspaper and the writer tell the story in different ways: the photograph records the hall's appearance, the journalist gives a sequence of events, and the literary text conveys an impression of the festivities. Paustovsky's poetic description should not replace a dated newspaper report, but it shows how the celebration almost immediately entered the cultural language of its time.

Later historical reference entries bring this evidence together into a brief chronology, but the phrase 'moved in 1953' does not in itself establish the date of a festive performance. The committee's document shows that organisational work was indeed under way before 1954 began. The dated newspaper report establishes when the first documented performance took place. Both facts are compatible; the exact date of the original order to change venues remains unknown.

There is another limit to what can be concluded. The 1954 celebration in St George's Hall must not be confused with outdoor festivities or later performances in a different Kremlin building. If a text simply says 'New Year celebration in the Kremlin', without naming the hall and year, differing interpretations become almost inevitable. Identifying the precise venue puts each piece of evidence in its proper context.

Why should the Kremlin Palace of Congresses not be confused with the 1954 venue?

The Kremlin Palace of Congresses is a different building, constructed long after the first children's New Year celebration in the Kremlin. The State Kremlin Palace dates its construction to 1961. A building constructed in 1961 could not have hosted the performance on 1 January 1954 described in the TASS report.

For the events of 1953/54, a clear distinction between the buildings is enough. St George's Hall is in the 19th-century Grand Kremlin Palace; the Palace of Congresses was built several years after those events. If an old photograph of a children's New Year celebration is captioned without specifying the hall, it could mistakenly be attributed to the later building. The names of the buildings help establish the dates in this story; they are more than architectural details added for colour.

What conclusion stands after checking the evidence?

The first confirmed Kremlin New Year celebration took place on 1 January 1954 in St George's Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace. The commission's documents dated 30 December 1953 record the preparations, without revealing when the original decision to change the main venue was made. A photograph of the January 1956 New Year celebration at the House of Unions, published by the Moscow Main Archive Directorate, shows that celebrations continued there.

You can compare the histories of the two venues on a walk through central Moscow: the ‘Journey into Christmas’ New Year tour passes through Okhotny Ryad, Teatralny Proyezd and Red Square; the itinerary mentions the Hall of Columns. The tour does not promise visits to the interiors.

Sources

1. Presidential Library: ‘The first New Year tree celebration took place in Moscow’
2. Presidential Library: ‘The Moscow Kremlin opens to the public’
3. ‘The New Year Tree’: a collection published by the People’s Commissariat for Education and the Toy Committee, 1937. Presidential Library catalogue
4. Ivan Shagin. ‘New Year celebration in the Column Hall of the House of Unions’, January 1937. History of Russia in Photographs
5. TASS. ‘New Year celebration at the Grand Kremlin Palace’. Moskovskaya Pravda, 3 January 1954. Text on Wikisource
6. Elena Dushechkina. ‘The Russian Christmas Tree: History, Mythology, Literature’
7. ‘Moscow Heritage’, No. 7, 2021: the House of Unions
8. D. N. Kulchinsky: the House of Unions, its history and the restoration of its interiors
9. Evgenia Gershkovich. Building of the Week: the Assembly of the Nobility building on Bolshaya Dmitrovka. Moskvich Mag, 2023
10. Presidential Library: how the USSR learnt to organise New Year parties
11. Moscow Main Archive: New Year celebration at the House of Unions on 29 December 1952, photograph by A. Batanov and V. Mastyukov (Wikimedia Commons file page)
12. Presidential Library: decree of 23 December 1947 concerning 1 January
13. Moscow Kremlin Museums: ten facts about the Kremlin’s monuments
14. Moscow Kremlin Museums: restoration of the architectural ensemble and its opening to the public
15. State Kremlin Palace: history of the building
16. Istorik magazine: the history of the Soviet New Year tree
17. Moscow Main Archive: documents on preparations for the 1954 Kremlin New Year party (reprinted article)
18. Pravda, 1 January 1954: announcement of a New Year party and masked ball at the Grand Kremlin Palace
19. Radius Tour Bureau: ‘Journey into Christmas’ tour
20. Marina Klinova. ‘A Labour Milestone and a Family Celebration: Representations of New Year in the Soviet Press, 1946–1956’, 2025, p. 185
21. Izvestia, 1 January 1954: contents of the issue featuring a photograph of the New Year tree in the Hall of Columns
22. Moscow Main Archive: photograph by M. Ozersky of the New Year celebration in the Hall of Columns, January 1956 (reproduction)